1 00:00:14,88 --> 00:00:21,81 Well. I'm thrilled to be thrilled that so many of you have come 2 00:00:22,76 --> 00:00:29,75 now this topic is controversial. But it actually shouldn't be but 3 00:00:29,76 --> 00:00:34,27 it is and it's for that reason that I want to let you know that you can read the 4 00:00:34,28 --> 00:00:37,21 science yourself you don't have to trust men and we have 5 00:00:37,29 --> 00:00:42,81 a lot of open minded was that IT people here and at my blog science Progress Action 6 00:00:43,10 --> 00:00:48,74 dot org slash intersection science Progress Action dot org slash intersection if 7 00:00:48,75 --> 00:00:54,30 you go back to the April thirteenth century sorry I didn't put it at the top again 8 00:00:54,59 --> 00:00:59,09 yet but if you go back to the April thirteenth century what I just got is links to 9 00:00:59,36 --> 00:01:00,40 one nine hundred thirty S. 10 00:01:00,97 --> 00:01:06,12 About nonpolitical differences between liberals and conservatives. You know 11 00:01:06,16 --> 00:01:10,31 published studies in the period literature so you can check some of that stuff out 12 00:01:10,32 --> 00:01:16,12 yourself it's only scratching the surface of what's out there because none of these 13 00:01:16,13 --> 00:01:20,14 or even psychology studies which is where the largest amount of research is but I 14 00:01:20,15 --> 00:01:24,22 just want to emphasize it's real and it's also it's not my fault it's the 15 00:01:24,23 --> 00:01:31,14 scientists ball. You know I used to mis understand the people 16 00:01:31,38 --> 00:01:37,87 who disagree with I used to think Hey if conservatives are denying science of 17 00:01:37,89 --> 00:01:43,51 global warming or they're denying science and evolution will have it must be must 18 00:01:43,51 --> 00:01:48,15 be because they're following God and what their religious leaders tell their is 19 00:01:48,15 --> 00:01:51,75 evolution their stem cell research there's anything having anything to do with sex 20 00:01:51,93 --> 00:01:58,12 OK we've got those covered. Or you know where they're following the money dollar so 21 00:01:58,64 --> 00:02:02,63 global warming anything having to do with the environment Exxon Mobil Koch brothers 22 00:02:03,14 --> 00:02:08,97 we know that story to so either you know you follow the money or you follow the 23 00:02:08,98 --> 00:02:14,35 religion and you understand why conservatives do that and that was really the way I 24 00:02:14,36 --> 00:02:18,55 explained it in the Republican War on Science two thousand and five and I was 25 00:02:18,56 --> 00:02:23,09 actually I was here talking about it then at the time we didn't mean to echo the 26 00:02:23,10 --> 00:02:27,78 cover image of another popular book that was also. You know selling like hotcakes 27 00:02:27,79 --> 00:02:33,48 and probably thought better than mine you can you can understand why. But that was 28 00:02:33,53 --> 00:02:38,48 that was how I was explaining the problem then and these were the Bush years I 29 00:02:38,48 --> 00:02:43,86 think that the throes of the era is well captured in an inadvertent quote quotation 30 00:02:44,12 --> 00:02:47,71 from the former president himself so Bush was giving 31 00:02:47,73 --> 00:02:52,19 a press conference following the two thousand and four tsunami which devastated so 32 00:02:52,20 --> 00:02:56,96 many Pacific Rim countries and Indian Ocean countries killed so many people and 33 00:02:56,98 --> 00:02:58,14 Bush got a question from 34 00:02:58,15 --> 00:03:03,44 a journalist he had no idea how to answer the question was Mr President does the 35 00:03:03,45 --> 00:03:04,22 United States have 36 00:03:04,23 --> 00:03:09,52 a warning system in place for the purpose of the second tsunami he thought Bush had 37 00:03:09,53 --> 00:03:14,57 no earthly idea so he hasn't cause any he finally tries to give an answer and the 38 00:03:14,58 --> 00:03:15,65 answer he starts to give 39 00:03:15,66 --> 00:03:22,09 a scientific in nature he starts to say well you know I think we might be less 40 00:03:22,10 --> 00:03:27,60 vulnerable than other parts of the world to tsunamis but then he quickly adds I'm 41 00:03:27,61 --> 00:03:27,85 not 42 00:03:27,86 --> 00:03:37,01 a geologist as you know. And. Yeah we know we know George. Such 43 00:03:37,51 --> 00:03:42,18 and Such was the Bush administration and science if we can to wrap it up and put 44 00:03:42,19 --> 00:03:47,75 a bow on it that's what it was like. So that's what I was writing about then and 45 00:03:47,76 --> 00:03:49,92 the crazy thing is that now Bush appears 46 00:03:49,93 --> 00:03:56,91 a moderate on science. We were so outraged then when. It 47 00:03:56,92 --> 00:04:01,55 seems it seems kind of seems kind of OK now almost I mean if you look at his 48 00:04:01,82 --> 00:04:06,99 statements on global warming compare him to Rick Santorum I mean just think about 49 00:04:07,00 --> 00:04:12,56 that so so I was I was cataloguing all the wrongs against science and I also again 50 00:04:12,57 --> 00:04:18,62 I had this called whole story of why these kinds of assaults were occurring and 51 00:04:18,63 --> 00:04:22,61 that causal story was about follow God or follow the money I would now call it 52 00:04:22,62 --> 00:04:26,95 a political story in the sense that this is the kind of story that political 53 00:04:26,96 --> 00:04:32,04 journalists tell all the time we try to explain the behavior of political actors by 54 00:04:32,05 --> 00:04:36,75 looking at who in what kind of constituencies put them in power who are they 55 00:04:36,76 --> 00:04:41,63 carrying water for rights with the Bush administration and the religious right it's 56 00:04:42,03 --> 00:04:44,31 Exxon Mobil it's corporate America that was why there was 57 00:04:44,32 --> 00:04:49,36 a war on science I said that was the political story was also environmental and not 58 00:04:49,37 --> 00:04:53,90 in the sense of clean air and clean water but in the sense of nurture rather than 59 00:04:53,91 --> 00:04:59,54 nature of say and that's because I was explaining this phenomenon at the surface of 60 00:04:59,55 --> 00:05:05,35 politics and again the back and forth of interest groups and horse races and 61 00:05:05,36 --> 00:05:10,83 campaigning and trying to get votes all the things about the political ecosystem 62 00:05:10,84 --> 00:05:15,08 that we see in pocket bout but I wasn't going beneath the surface I was certainly 63 00:05:15,09 --> 00:05:21,62 not going into anybody's head that's what the new book does before we get to it I 64 00:05:21,63 --> 00:05:26,05 do want to say that the Republican war on science was validated in the scientific 65 00:05:26,06 --> 00:05:29,13 literature recently and this is pretty awesome so 66 00:05:29,14 --> 00:05:33,69 a sociologist named Gordon go shots in the American Sociological Review set out to 67 00:05:33,70 --> 00:05:38,78 test what he called my thesis and if you report on science then it's pretty awesome 68 00:05:38,79 --> 00:05:40,48 to find in the opening abstract of 69 00:05:40,49 --> 00:05:47,44 a paper you know I set out to test apprentices moony two thousand and five. I love 70 00:05:47,45 --> 00:05:48,93 that and so he found 71 00:05:48,94 --> 00:05:53,83 a new database. To do it with and this is the General Social Survey they've been 72 00:05:53,84 --> 00:05:57,64 asking people about their trust in institutions of writing institutions how much 73 00:05:57,65 --> 00:06:01,73 you trust the leaders of the military. How much do you trust leaders of Congress 74 00:06:01,74 --> 00:06:07,46 people that how much do you trust journalists people really all right but they also 75 00:06:07,47 --> 00:06:11,65 say how much do you trust the leaders of the scientific community and go shot broke 76 00:06:11,66 --> 00:06:17,20 it down by self described political leaning left right center conservative moderate 77 00:06:17,21 --> 00:06:21,98 liberal conservative the read and as you can see they just go down and down and 78 00:06:21,99 --> 00:06:27,86 down over this thirty five year period so it isn't just like everybody just trust 79 00:06:27,87 --> 00:06:34,59 science it's conservatives in America who just why and they've gotten worse 80 00:06:35,06 --> 00:06:40,03 why is that the case well we could give that surface level explanation which I gave 81 00:06:40,04 --> 00:06:46,22 in the Republican one science but I came to feel that that was not enough and I 82 00:06:46,23 --> 00:06:46,91 want to tell you about 83 00:06:47,39 --> 00:06:50,79 a little bit of the research that made me think it was not enough and then I'll 84 00:06:50,80 --> 00:06:56,62 tell you what I actually found so I became aware of work by Brendan Nyhan who's 85 00:06:56,63 --> 00:07:02,55 a political scientist at Dartmouth he studies what he calls motivated reasoning and 86 00:07:02,99 --> 00:07:07,88 here's Brendan's motivated reasoning is emotional reasoning and he sets up 87 00:07:07,89 --> 00:07:11,56 experiments to test this and one of the experiments I learned about it's really 88 00:07:11,57 --> 00:07:15,60 kind of jaw dropping what they do is they take liberals and conservatives and give 89 00:07:15,61 --> 00:07:20,05 them a fake newspaper article containing a false that 90 00:07:20,74 --> 00:07:25,73 a false fact stated in the newspaper article by someone people either respect or 91 00:07:25,93 --> 00:07:27,17 don't respect like George W. 92 00:07:27,18 --> 00:07:33,20 Bush and the false facts in the experiment that conservatives tend to believe in 93 00:07:33,47 --> 00:07:39,72 was either you know Iraq had weapons of mass destruction or tax cuts increase 94 00:07:39,73 --> 00:07:46,58 revenue to the government. The fire is the laws of economics is it. But but 95 00:07:46,59 --> 00:07:50,25 this is what the the article contains these words are coming out of George W. 96 00:07:50,26 --> 00:07:53,55 Bush's mouth and then they randomly manipulated whether people read 97 00:07:53,56 --> 00:07:55,56 a correction so sometimes 98 00:07:55,57 --> 00:08:00,34 a journalist would say this is not true which is what journalists should do but 99 00:08:00,35 --> 00:08:06,28 they do too rarely and sometimes the journalists. Wouldn't do that so what happened 100 00:08:06,29 --> 00:08:09,67 to the conservatives when they saw the false fact that they believed in and then 101 00:08:09,68 --> 00:08:15,71 they received the correction so who's seen the movie Swingers and they want 102 00:08:16,77 --> 00:08:21,82 some some of the audience will know what what you do in that movie and in blackjack 103 00:08:21,83 --> 00:08:27,91 in Vegas if you get dealt its hands on eleven what he did double down that's what 104 00:08:27,92 --> 00:08:33,11 the Conservatives did they double down on the fall believe that means they 105 00:08:33,15 --> 00:08:37,81 increased their bet think Priest their bet on the wrong belief upon receiving 106 00:08:37,82 --> 00:08:44,64 a refutation of the wrong belief OK they became more convinced of the wrong beliefs 107 00:08:44,65 --> 00:08:49,52 upon receiving the factual recitations this is the kind of thing that makes you 108 00:08:49,53 --> 00:08:54,70 want to go inside the brain it wasn't just this I became aware of 109 00:08:54,71 --> 00:09:00,62 a phenomenon that I call in the book The smart idiot the right 110 00:09:01,34 --> 00:09:07,08 smart idiot coining this phrase I want this to be in the academic literature so 111 00:09:07,09 --> 00:09:07,35 what's 112 00:09:07,36 --> 00:09:13,55 a smart idea I first encountered them in two thousand and eight interview data 113 00:09:14,32 --> 00:09:18,63 showing the relationship between your political party affiliation your level of 114 00:09:18,64 --> 00:09:24,21 education and your acceptance of scientific reality on global warming so here we 115 00:09:24,22 --> 00:09:28,87 have this Pew data and we've got college grads and not college grads and we've got 116 00:09:28,88 --> 00:09:34,76 going from left to right we've got Republican independents and Democrats and so 117 00:09:34,94 --> 00:09:40,17 what this shows is that if you're Republicans and the higher level of education the 118 00:09:40,18 --> 00:09:44,89 less likely you are to accept scientific reality. Right which is the global warming 119 00:09:44,90 --> 00:09:46,88 is real and caused by humans but if you're 120 00:09:46,89 --> 00:09:50,21 a Democrat or an independent precisely the opposite is the case the more you accept 121 00:09:50,22 --> 00:09:56,04 science as your level of education increases so the college grad Republicans who 122 00:09:56,05 --> 00:10:02,89 deny science Those are smart it is right and it isn't just on science that we find 123 00:10:02,90 --> 00:10:08,85 this troubling smart idiot that this is data from John Sides of George Washington 124 00:10:09,06 --> 00:10:11,25 on belief the President Obama is 125 00:10:11,26 --> 00:10:17,51 a Muslim Needless to say this is not true. And it's about where the belief increase 126 00:10:17,52 --> 00:10:21,69 from two thousand and twenty times down the left we've got Republicans on the right 127 00:10:21,70 --> 00:10:26,79 we've got Democrats clearly the belief increases more among Republicans but again 128 00:10:26,80 --> 00:10:29,18 he's broken it down by the level of education and you've got 129 00:10:29,19 --> 00:10:33,58 a much steeper slope for the college grads and some college than you have for those 130 00:10:33,59 --> 00:10:40,48 with high school or less smart idiot what is up with these people 131 00:10:40,76 --> 00:10:47,54 all right. We need to understand. You need to understand this 132 00:10:47,55 --> 00:10:52,43 phenomenon. And and 133 00:10:55,20 --> 00:11:01,12 even the animals are going and I don't think that we can slowly understand this 134 00:11:01,16 --> 00:11:06,53 phenomenon at the surface of politics I don't think the environmental account is 135 00:11:06,57 --> 00:11:11,86 fully adequate so that's what the book is about we need something more 136 00:11:14,51 --> 00:11:19,40 we see what the Republican War on Science didn't consider what our political and 137 00:11:19,41 --> 00:11:24,18 journalistic classes do not want to face this very inconvenient for how they go 138 00:11:24,19 --> 00:11:29,43 about doing their business is the growing body of evidence that liberals and 139 00:11:29,44 --> 00:11:34,91 conservatives are just different people. Different in ways that go far beyond and 140 00:11:34,92 --> 00:11:41,69 that it's here prior to their views about politics and then we're sort of pushed 141 00:11:42,42 --> 00:11:48,34 or nudged to adopt certain views that they feel naturally right that's just kind of 142 00:11:48,35 --> 00:11:55,23 what has. And as I went to work trying to explain the Nile reality again and why it 143 00:11:55,24 --> 00:12:00,36 had gotten worse I found this evidence impossible to ignore because it was all over 144 00:12:00,37 --> 00:12:04,81 the scientific literature and it was all consistent there was 145 00:12:04,82 --> 00:12:07,75 a lot of different scientists doing it and eventually as 146 00:12:07,76 --> 00:12:09,58 a science journalist you say hey there's really 147 00:12:09,83 --> 00:12:14,87 a weight of an interlocking body of evidence here that you really can't ignore it 148 00:12:15,77 --> 00:12:21,10 and this evidence suggests that our political beliefs and our factual beliefs are 149 00:12:21,29 --> 00:12:23,34 at least partly rooted in 150 00:12:23,38 --> 00:12:28,94 a set of personality traits psychological traits even perhaps physiological tricks 151 00:12:30,05 --> 00:12:36,73 upon which people differ and so and to some extent these are inherent Now 152 00:12:37,46 --> 00:12:42,09 I want to be clear at the outset that liberals and conservatives on average are 153 00:12:42,10 --> 00:12:44,91 different people in simply a fact it's 154 00:12:44,92 --> 00:12:50,95 a fact that is value neutral what you make of it is up to you I think it is just as 155 00:12:50,96 --> 00:12:55,35 bad news for liberals in many ways as it is for conservatives because they end up 156 00:12:55,36 --> 00:12:58,74 showing the two groups have different strengths and weaknesses in different areas 157 00:12:58,78 --> 00:13:03,38 is the punch line but my contentions this point is that you can no longer ignore 158 00:13:03,82 --> 00:13:09,27 this fact so let's let's just deal with the facts as it is it turns out that like 159 00:13:09,28 --> 00:13:14,30 all important insights this is something that people have always kind of know it's 160 00:13:14,31 --> 00:13:20,07 not a shocker sort of obvious and what you've got in your is 161 00:13:20,08 --> 00:13:26,08 a playbill for Gilbert and Sullivan comments opera Island eighteen eighty two 162 00:13:27,36 --> 00:13:27,84 they've got 163 00:13:27,85 --> 00:13:32,82 a verse in here that essentially makes this point long before the body of science 164 00:13:32,83 --> 00:13:35,61 that I'm talking about existed somehow in least to 165 00:13:35,77 --> 00:13:40,39 a comic sense they're making precisely this point and I want to read the verse to 166 00:13:40,40 --> 00:13:44,30 you in one thousand nine hundred two I think English was pronounced 167 00:13:44,31 --> 00:13:48,03 a little bit differently than is now so it doesn't rhyme anymore I'm going to make 168 00:13:48,04 --> 00:13:53,89 it wrong but here's here the words. Nature always does contrive that every boy and 169 00:13:53,90 --> 00:13:57,95 every gal that born into this world to live in either a lean 170 00:13:58,03 --> 00:14:03,83 a little liberal or else little conservative. Now 171 00:14:04,98 --> 00:14:10,21 what are they talking about here you can identify liberal and conservative children 172 00:14:11,33 --> 00:14:16,30 because they don't have ideology yet do that not in the sense that we like to think 173 00:14:16,31 --> 00:14:19,73 of audio G. And yet there is actually in the book 174 00:14:20,02 --> 00:14:24,04 a study that does longitudinal research looking at three year olds and finding 175 00:14:24,05 --> 00:14:27,12 their politics twenty years later and it turns out that there is 176 00:14:27,13 --> 00:14:33,99 a correlation between how they play and their politics. So the observation is 177 00:14:34,00 --> 00:14:40,75 not new. But we still tend to think about politics in the blank slate sort of way 178 00:14:41,47 --> 00:14:46,26 we assume that we came to our views by thinking about the issues and if we defer it 179 00:14:46,27 --> 00:14:50,10 just because we you know our parents told us different things or we ended up having 180 00:14:50,11 --> 00:14:53,24 different sets of interests or life experiences put me in 181 00:14:53,25 --> 00:14:54,79 a different situation and hey I'd be 182 00:14:54,80 --> 00:15:01,32 a conservative really the new science radically challenges that assumption 183 00:15:02,25 --> 00:15:07,06 because if ideology were what people like to think it is if it were just 184 00:15:07,07 --> 00:15:12,94 a set of conscious ideas that we hold about how society should be structured then 185 00:15:12,95 --> 00:15:18,81 why would we find differences between liberals and conservatives in how they 186 00:15:18,82 --> 00:15:24,88 organize their bedrooms and yet we do liberals are messy or. 187 00:15:25,93 --> 00:15:32,42 All right you know it's true. You know it's true yeah look at that. But they've 188 00:15:32,44 --> 00:15:36,67 also goes cool stuff they've got books they've got CD collections they've got 189 00:15:36,67 --> 00:15:41,89 travel guides and movie tickets all right conservative you know the spaces are 190 00:15:41,90 --> 00:15:45,20 cleaner and more conventional in the decorations and things like American flag 191 00:15:48,58 --> 00:15:53,70 and end of ideology were just this you know conscious idea about how society should 192 00:15:53,71 --> 00:15:59,19 be structured then why would liberals and conservatives differ in their preferences 193 00:15:59,20 --> 00:16:06,05 for our. But they do liberals appreciate abstract art conservatives 194 00:16:06,06 --> 00:16:10,64 appreciate representational art more in other words portraits landscape painting 195 00:16:10,90 --> 00:16:16,66 that kind of stuff is that ideology why do they reliably differ on something like 196 00:16:16,67 --> 00:16:22,00 this or why do they have different senses of humor 197 00:16:24,00 --> 00:16:30,80 that they do. So it turns out the good news is that both liberals and conservatives 198 00:16:30,81 --> 00:16:35,88 find Stephen Colbert funny but they do so for different reasons and there is 199 00:16:35,89 --> 00:16:36,26 actually 200 00:16:36,27 --> 00:16:42,28 a study of this I love I love science I love science and what it found was that you 201 00:16:42,29 --> 00:16:45,54 know both groups think it's funny but liberals think he's funny because they think 202 00:16:45,55 --> 00:16:45,70 he's 203 00:16:45,71 --> 00:16:50,23 a parody of conservatives and conservatives think he's funny because deep down he's 204 00:16:50,24 --> 00:16:57,13 really one of them. Though again you know people are 205 00:16:57,14 --> 00:17:00,28 profiting things very very differently and the 206 00:17:00,32 --> 00:17:05,65 a political differences go on and on in the book the last chapter we do 207 00:17:05,66 --> 00:17:07,02 a new experiment I work with 208 00:17:07,03 --> 00:17:12,04 a political scientist named Everett Young and in his dissertation he found 209 00:17:12,56 --> 00:17:16,65 a lot of liberal conservative differences including the following he found that 210 00:17:16,66 --> 00:17:21,57 conservatives were more likely to think the fans of rival for teams were just bad 211 00:17:21,58 --> 00:17:28,10 people. They were more likely to want to keep germs out of their bodies. 212 00:17:29,88 --> 00:17:31,59 And they were more likely to elect 213 00:17:31,60 --> 00:17:38,27 a candidate to Congress to keep his or her lawn neatly edged that ideology 214 00:17:43,14 --> 00:17:47,45 and it gets weirder because we've got all this cool research now to showing that 215 00:17:47,46 --> 00:17:50,14 you can temporarily make a liberal into 216 00:17:50,14 --> 00:17:56,40 a conservative but you don't do it by convincing them with ideas you do it through 217 00:17:56,41 --> 00:18:02,75 some sort of emotional or even physiological manipulation so what works to make 218 00:18:02,76 --> 00:18:05,99 a little more conservative alcohol. 219 00:18:09,57 --> 00:18:13,29 Study that just came out and then I talk about in the book I love that the 220 00:18:13,30 --> 00:18:16,15 scientists can say this is a we set up outside of a bar with 221 00:18:16,16 --> 00:18:17,72 a political questionnaire and 222 00:18:17,73 --> 00:18:23,59 a breathalyzer and they're asking people questions like How much do you agree with 223 00:18:23,60 --> 00:18:28,91 the statement property rights should be absolute and they find that both groups 224 00:18:28,92 --> 00:18:32,34 shift to the right liberals and conservatives both ship to the right in correlation 225 00:18:32,35 --> 00:18:38,47 with what I'll call them now that's not the only way to make 226 00:18:38,48 --> 00:18:39,89 a liberal into 227 00:18:40,68 --> 00:18:46,34 a temporary conservative until the hangover sets and another very similar studies 228 00:18:46,35 --> 00:18:49,90 found very similar effect by asking political questions near 229 00:18:49,91 --> 00:18:56,73 a hand sanitizer. So that people who are being primed they notice the 230 00:18:56,74 --> 00:19:01,29 hand sanitizer they're being primed to think of being clean and this had 231 00:19:01,30 --> 00:19:04,52 a right worship other studies it found 232 00:19:04,53 --> 00:19:08,60 a rightward shift when you put people under time pressure so how much do you like 233 00:19:08,82 --> 00:19:14,47 respect authority versus care about the right just answer. That's they give more 234 00:19:14,48 --> 00:19:19,37 conservative answers than if they have forced distractions you know answer this 235 00:19:19,38 --> 00:19:22,23 questionnaire while you're also listening to this music and in making 236 00:19:22,24 --> 00:19:28,15 a note every time they change to more conservative than and then the manipulation 237 00:19:28,16 --> 00:19:33,79 that we all know makes people more conservative fear emotion of fear 238 00:19:35,21 --> 00:19:41,98 on think anybody really. Seen it seen in the psychology of ideology research 239 00:19:42,22 --> 00:19:48,78 explains all this very well which is why we're not going to be. So what 240 00:19:48,87 --> 00:19:54,74 then is ideology and where does it live obviously not going to be in your elbow 241 00:19:54,75 --> 00:20:00,18 it's going to be in your brain. So though I talk about the brain research in the 242 00:20:00,19 --> 00:20:05,36 book I want to be very clear this is the new stuff this is controversial is 243 00:20:05,37 --> 00:20:10,38 a lot of cow vs to go with it we don't know exactly what all of it means and if 244 00:20:10,39 --> 00:20:13,67 this was all that there was out there in the scientific literature then I wouldn't 245 00:20:13,68 --> 00:20:14,63 feel comfortable making 246 00:20:14,64 --> 00:20:18,45 a big deal out of it too much uncertainty it turns out though this is just the 247 00:20:18,46 --> 00:20:22,42 icing on the cake of all the psychological research so it's natural that they would 248 00:20:22,43 --> 00:20:25,70 go look in the brain for differences in the rules and service because of all the 249 00:20:25,71 --> 00:20:28,70 psychological differences we're going to discuss let me just tell you what they 250 00:20:28,71 --> 00:20:34,47 found this the study of University of College College of London students and what's 251 00:20:34,48 --> 00:20:41,39 funny is that the study was was asked for by Collin Firth who said you know 252 00:20:41,85 --> 00:20:47,22 I wanted to find out what was wrong with the people who disagreed with me. And the 253 00:20:47,23 --> 00:20:52,60 scientists actually found something. I don't endorse that statement I don't think 254 00:20:52,61 --> 00:20:57,72 there's anything wrong with conservative versus liberal but there are differences 255 00:20:58,08 --> 00:21:02,94 and this study found that. The differences are in the right to mingle in the 256 00:21:02,95 --> 00:21:06,30 interest single it on average and it's not 257 00:21:06,30 --> 00:21:10,36 a giant difference on average conservatives have more grey matter in the right to 258 00:21:10,37 --> 00:21:17,24 mingle in this study which is and once OK what does that mean the middle is known 259 00:21:17,25 --> 00:21:21,46 as the brains here and threats center you should be very glad that you have one it 260 00:21:21,47 --> 00:21:25,86 keeps you alive you share it with other animals it's very obvious why evolution 261 00:21:25,87 --> 00:21:27,67 would do such a thing because in 262 00:21:27,68 --> 00:21:32,67 a situation where your life is that they make less takes over and it saves you for 263 00:21:32,68 --> 00:21:39,24 trusted by running out automatic response program like fight or flight liberals had 264 00:21:39,25 --> 00:21:44,13 more gray matter in this study in the anterior cingulate cortex which does 265 00:21:44,14 --> 00:21:49,33 a different thing in the brain it's thought to be our error detecting region which 266 00:21:49,34 --> 00:21:53,64 basically what it does is it monitors what you're doing and if you need to change. 267 00:21:54,67 --> 00:21:59,21 That's the interior saying let's don't do that to something that you can imagine 268 00:21:59,52 --> 00:22:00,01 you spent on 269 00:22:00,02 --> 00:22:04,64 a story about how this match is liberalism and service but again I do think that 270 00:22:04,65 --> 00:22:09,14 the brain stuff is uncertain but what's not uncertain is that liberals and 271 00:22:09,15 --> 00:22:13,45 conservatives have different personalities and in fact that's the reason that 272 00:22:13,46 --> 00:22:16,81 people are doing actual brain scan studies of what they're trying to figure out 273 00:22:16,82 --> 00:22:22,48 that visible correlate of the really well established personality so to show those 274 00:22:22,49 --> 00:22:26,40 personality differences I want to give you some screen shots that we showed college 275 00:22:26,41 --> 00:22:30,94 students in the experiment that we ran at the end of the book and these are just 276 00:22:30,95 --> 00:22:37,67 standard questions to tap into what are called the big personality traits so you 277 00:22:37,68 --> 00:22:43,41 see on the screen I see myself as two then two words or phrases artistic 278 00:22:43,42 --> 00:22:47,36 a highly abstract thinker and you're supposed to say how much you agree that this 279 00:22:47,37 --> 00:22:49,25 describes you and you rate yourself on 280 00:22:49,26 --> 00:22:52,13 a scale from one to seven and disagree strongly to 281 00:22:52,14 --> 00:22:58,23 a pretty strong so they would see that and they would see many like that one was I 282 00:22:58,25 --> 00:23:04,95 see myself as dependable So this is another one was I see myself as 283 00:23:05,15 --> 00:23:10,84 open to new experiences complex and so it went again I don't think any of these 284 00:23:10,85 --> 00:23:15,57 questions are political but they all yield reliable political differences in their 285 00:23:15,58 --> 00:23:20,25 wills and conservative questions one in three liberal score higher that's 286 00:23:20,26 --> 00:23:20,75 a measurement of 287 00:23:20,76 --> 00:23:25,13 a trait called openness to experience question two dependable self-discipline 288 00:23:25,25 --> 00:23:26,82 conservative score higher that's 289 00:23:26,83 --> 00:23:33,26 a trait called conscientious. The evidence showing that these traits distinguish 290 00:23:33,27 --> 00:23:37,33 liberals and conservatives is massive in this my big data dump the talk this is 291 00:23:37,34 --> 00:23:42,28 a study of twelve thousand people and how big five personality traits predict their 292 00:23:42,29 --> 00:23:45,94 politics so at the top and blue you've got things that tend to make the liberal 293 00:23:46,17 --> 00:23:50,01 Fatah men read you've got things that tend to make you conservative you've got the 294 00:23:50,02 --> 00:23:55,49 big five trait conscientiousness wanting order and structure in your life makes you 295 00:23:55,50 --> 00:23:59,39 conservative and it makes you all kinds of conservative because you've got overall 296 00:23:59,40 --> 00:24:04,13 conservative we've got economic conservative social conservative openness to new 297 00:24:04,14 --> 00:24:09,00 experiences this is like a new ideas and new things is a powerful effect in making 298 00:24:09,01 --> 00:24:13,60 a liberal and it's the biggest one that's questions one and three that you saw 299 00:24:14,49 --> 00:24:18,21 agreeableness I think we all know what that is at the sort of the splits within the 300 00:24:18,22 --> 00:24:22,89 rules and conservatives the bill of the conservative the less neurotic and there 301 00:24:22,90 --> 00:24:28,45 will fit soldiers good news for them here as well as Senate. Extroversion 302 00:24:28,46 --> 00:24:33,95 conservatives probably have more friends and fascinatingly they compare it with the 303 00:24:33,96 --> 00:24:38,94 two things that we always admit influence ideology which is income and education 304 00:24:39,60 --> 00:24:43,88 and sure enough you see that red you know going down having 305 00:24:43,89 --> 00:24:45,56 a high level of income is 306 00:24:45,57 --> 00:24:50,28 a very very strong effect in making you conservative All right we know that it's as 307 00:24:50,29 --> 00:24:55,42 big as open wheel I don't like to admit the openness but we know that an education 308 00:24:55,46 --> 00:24:59,99 makes you socially liberal and overall and we know that but what this is showing is 309 00:25:00,00 --> 00:25:06,08 that personality is as big as or bigger than the sociological thing and people 310 00:25:06,08 --> 00:25:09,85 don't like to admit that because personality partly genetic and then you get into 311 00:25:09,86 --> 00:25:14,93 all that kind of stuff. But that's what the research shows So what makes you 312 00:25:14,94 --> 00:25:19,40 liberal openness in education what makes you conservative money and structure why 313 00:25:19,42 --> 00:25:25,68 do conservatives NY reality right there the lack of openness that's my art 314 00:25:26,31 --> 00:25:33,17 that's the books are so what is opened. Here's one slogans that 315 00:25:33,18 --> 00:25:38,03 appealed to the open personnel's This is why you people pay too much money for math 316 00:25:38,03 --> 00:25:44,35 . Right. Openness 317 00:25:45,34 --> 00:25:51,72 is about intellectual flexibility it's about tolerance of uncertainty and big you 318 00:25:51,73 --> 00:25:56,91 Woody and change it means needing the thing wanting new sensations wanting novelty 319 00:25:57,65 --> 00:26:03,54 wanting to experience different things it's been called neo philia. It's been 320 00:26:03,55 --> 00:26:10,54 called Sensation Seeking these and it's it's an exploratory and 321 00:26:10,59 --> 00:26:15,65 openness is also I would say and I think the evidence supports this strongly 322 00:26:15,67 --> 00:26:20,100 a characteristic of people who opt to be inside. And sure enough the scientific 323 00:26:21,01 --> 00:26:27,04 community is liberal on average and psychologically liberal on now what this what 324 00:26:27,05 --> 00:26:32,72 this suggests is that across heroes and time periods and political systems there's 325 00:26:32,73 --> 00:26:37,50 always this exploratory side to human nature and it leads to broadly liberal 326 00:26:37,62 --> 00:26:43,19 tendencies because it's friendly to change it's friendly to new ideas it's friendly 327 00:26:43,20 --> 00:26:48,32 to different kinds of people and conservatism has always been the US it's more of 328 00:26:48,33 --> 00:26:53,10 a defensive ideology it's more friendly disability structure and people who need 329 00:26:53,11 --> 00:26:58,13 certainty so no matter how much political systems change no matter how culture 330 00:26:58,14 --> 00:27:03,76 changes there appears to be this psychological core to left right ideology that's 331 00:27:03,77 --> 00:27:09,77 rooted in personality and how cool you are with new things and that explains of 332 00:27:09,78 --> 00:27:16,47 course nicely why the left right term shows up again and again across history in so 333 00:27:16,48 --> 00:27:21,03 many different contexts and to show that let's go back to the French Revolution 334 00:27:22,16 --> 00:27:27,60 this is John John gruesome. He is often blamed for having caused the French 335 00:27:27,61 --> 00:27:32,63 Revolution with his ideas and the social contract and the idea of the general will 336 00:27:33,13 --> 00:27:37,41 was used to intellectually at least justify the revolution not like it was the only 337 00:27:37,42 --> 00:27:41,37 cause. And I go back to the French Revolution because the French Revolution is the 338 00:27:41,38 --> 00:27:47,52 time the moment when the left right spectrum was first to find based upon where you 339 00:27:47,53 --> 00:27:52,14 sat in one of the many assemblies there were many assemblies during the revolution 340 00:27:52,15 --> 00:27:56,96 I forget which one but anyway the people in the last wanted to overthrow the ocean 341 00:27:56,97 --> 00:28:02,94 regime and the people on the right wanted to support it who was Rousseau Rousseau 342 00:28:03,15 --> 00:28:05,12 was a liberal in 343 00:28:05,13 --> 00:28:09,40 a different era and here's how Thomas Carlyle described his personality he could be 344 00:28:09,41 --> 00:28:11,80 cooped in the garret he could be left out as 345 00:28:11,81 --> 00:28:13,55 a maniac he could be left to starve like 346 00:28:13,56 --> 00:28:17,79 a wild beast in his cage so he could not be hindered from setting the world on fire 347 00:28:19,91 --> 00:28:24,24 that's a liberal and the seventeen on Galileo was 348 00:28:24,53 --> 00:28:30,20 a liberal sixteen he couldn't help messing with authority he just it was too much 349 00:28:30,24 --> 00:28:35,88 fun for him to read Galileo and you will see that read Galileo on the originals 350 00:28:35,89 --> 00:28:41,33 a wonderful experience openness or the lack thereof it's 351 00:28:41,34 --> 00:28:47,73 a very clear pathway to the conservative denial of reality because openness is open 352 00:28:48,29 --> 00:28:54,51 right I mean and it's it's obviously if you're not open your close and openness is 353 00:28:54,55 --> 00:28:55,66 inversely related to 354 00:28:55,67 --> 00:29:00,85 a trait called the need for cognitive clothes which we study and this is the need 355 00:29:00,86 --> 00:29:01,19 to have 356 00:29:01,20 --> 00:29:06,75 a definitive answer to something so that you can stop thinking about it too not to 357 00:29:06,76 --> 00:29:12,99 deal with ambiguity you not to deal with uncertainty and if you are to have 358 00:29:13,00 --> 00:29:17,30 a need for closure then you tend to seize on information that supports you and then 359 00:29:17,31 --> 00:29:20,54 you freeze and you don't want any more information and you limit your information 360 00:29:20,55 --> 00:29:25,77 search. That's one of the key characteristics of the trait and yes need for closure 361 00:29:25,78 --> 00:29:30,79 is associated with conservatism this is open this is liberalism we and the 362 00:29:30,80 --> 00:29:32,42 evolutionists have been studying they have 363 00:29:32,43 --> 00:29:37,35 a relatively higher need for closure on the global warming the Tea Party they say 364 00:29:37,47 --> 00:29:40,48 not only are they the most factually wrong about the issue but they say they don't 365 00:29:40,49 --> 00:29:47,38 need any more information about at the far low end of openness 366 00:29:48,56 --> 00:29:48,76 we have 367 00:29:48,77 --> 00:29:56,02 a character who doesn't question authority but respects authority thirty's 368 00:29:56,03 --> 00:29:58,72 great give me a leader to follow 369 00:29:59,05 --> 00:30:03,18 a strong leader who tells me what I need to think so I want to think about it so 370 00:30:03,19 --> 00:30:07,98 that I'm certain and I feel secure and that character is an authoritarian and this 371 00:30:07,100 --> 00:30:08,05 is 372 00:30:08,07 --> 00:30:12,16 a conservative personality type much studied in literature and they tend to view the 373 00:30:12,18 --> 00:30:15,96 world more in black and white not ambiguity not shades of gray black and white 374 00:30:16,73 --> 00:30:21,25 right they like rigid social structures they like hierarchy someone's on top 375 00:30:21,30 --> 00:30:22,21 running things usually 376 00:30:22,23 --> 00:30:27,53 a man usually white usually straight. They opt the fun up for fundamentalist 377 00:30:27,55 --> 00:30:33,97 beliefs because those can for certain there's research on them being more 378 00:30:33,98 --> 00:30:38,90 defensive and emotional about their beliefs less likely to change their minds more 379 00:30:38,91 --> 00:30:44,23 likely to use quick fire heuristics to figure out what they think and most 380 00:30:44,24 --> 00:30:48,01 interesting Lee several studies on right wing authoritarians and what's called 381 00:30:48,02 --> 00:30:53,37 selective exposure to information now we all do this we all consume information 382 00:30:53,38 --> 00:30:57,07 that agrees with us more than information that disagrees but it seems like they do 383 00:30:57,08 --> 00:30:57,37 it even 384 00:30:57,38 --> 00:31:02,64 a little bit more. There was one study of Democrats Independents and Republicans 385 00:31:03,11 --> 00:31:09,39 and Fox News and what it found was that the Republicans were overwhelmingly 386 00:31:09,40 --> 00:31:15,32 choosing Fox the Democrats they're not they don't like Fox. But they're they're 387 00:31:15,33 --> 00:31:17,88 sort of they're grazing there they're sampling 388 00:31:17,89 --> 00:31:22,42 a lot of information sources where the probability that Republicans like the C.N.N. 389 00:31:22,43 --> 00:31:22,85 Or N.P.R. 390 00:31:22,86 --> 00:31:28,34 Report was just ten percent. So when we want to explain why conservatives today 391 00:31:28,35 --> 00:31:33,61 deny reality. This is the kind of thing you gotta think about because sure enough 392 00:31:33,62 --> 00:31:38,19 if you watch Fox you tend to be wrong all right Fox increases your risk of 393 00:31:38,20 --> 00:31:42,14 believing fall things in controversial areas about politics we have 394 00:31:42,15 --> 00:31:46,07 a lot of research on this I talk about on the book and it's clearly partly because 395 00:31:46,08 --> 00:31:50,98 Fox misinforms people because here they are still in doubt about global warming and 396 00:31:50,99 --> 00:31:55,29 so sure enough Fox News viewers believe more often about global warming but that's 397 00:31:55,30 --> 00:31:59,50 just an environmentalist that I'm saying don't just look at the environment don't 398 00:31:59,51 --> 00:32:03,41 just look at nurture look at nature because we've also got authoritarians opting in 399 00:32:03,42 --> 00:32:05,01 the watching FOX So it's 400 00:32:05,02 --> 00:32:09,40 a feedback and you don't really understand it just by saying Fox is misinforming 401 00:32:09,41 --> 00:32:15,43 the hill they want that. They want information that makes them feel secure 402 00:32:16,21 --> 00:32:21,20 and certain about what they already think but of course there's things that 403 00:32:21,21 --> 00:32:27,99 liberals want to what the liberals up in says I or education 404 00:32:29,55 --> 00:32:36,09 they like to go and they like to say. Look 405 00:32:36,13 --> 00:32:41,18 conservatives are right conservatives are right that academia is overwhelmingly 406 00:32:41,19 --> 00:32:43,94 liberal they're wrong that it makes you 407 00:32:43,95 --> 00:32:48,43 a liberal I think I mean you know Rick Santorum story was sort of like you know we 408 00:32:48,44 --> 00:32:52,82 sent little Johnny off to college and suddenly you know he grew his hair long and 409 00:32:52,83 --> 00:32:57,84 started to smell bad and he didn't believe in God It doesn't really work like that 410 00:32:57,85 --> 00:33:02,30 I think that people are naturally liberal long before they get to college and then 411 00:33:02,31 --> 00:33:04,81 college seems like a perfect place for them because it's it's 412 00:33:04,82 --> 00:33:07,71 a playground for people who are open to new experiences new things to get to meet 413 00:33:07,72 --> 00:33:10,55 all these different kinds of people and take all these classes learn all this stuff 414 00:33:11,59 --> 00:33:15,36 in any case the evidence is clear that it is liberal and so is the scientific 415 00:33:15,44 --> 00:33:20,80 community. Only six percent of members of the American assistance and events in the 416 00:33:20,81 --> 00:33:27,09 science or Republican. Mostly Well yeah I mean I think it's part of the nature of 417 00:33:27,10 --> 00:33:32,41 things only only I'll think the question then is is it 418 00:33:32,42 --> 00:33:36,51 a factual thing probably there's been somewhat of 419 00:33:36,52 --> 00:33:40,48 a ship but I think it's also part of the nature of things it's probably shifted 420 00:33:40,49 --> 00:33:45,87 even more but yes and then college professors are fourteen percent Republicans 421 00:33:46,63 --> 00:33:48,54 based on the latest evidence liberals have 422 00:33:48,55 --> 00:33:54,100 a much greater percentage of advanced degrees and conservatives. And. Neil broke 423 00:33:55,04 --> 00:33:59,03 sociologist who studies that says that more so than ever before the highly educated 424 00:33:59,43 --> 00:33:59,87 comprise 425 00:33:59,88 --> 00:34:05,35 a key constituency for American liberalism and Democratic Party so if you go back 426 00:34:05,36 --> 00:34:09,11 to my big data dump All right we've got the things that make you liberal the things 427 00:34:09,12 --> 00:34:12,08 that make you conservative in the things that make you wrong about the facts. 428 00:34:13,74 --> 00:34:18,24 Clearly openness is involved in our divide over reality what's true but 429 00:34:18,40 --> 00:34:23,19 a lot of the effect is also going to be residing over here and openness is slowly 430 00:34:23,20 --> 00:34:29,75 contributing to this higher education differential especially advanced degrees. But 431 00:34:29,76 --> 00:34:36,10 also that's partly an environmental and it's gotten worse because of conservatives 432 00:34:36,11 --> 00:34:40,02 attacking academia like Rick Santorum did and basically branding it as 433 00:34:40,03 --> 00:34:45,91 a place that if you're conservative you don't want to say well what does all add up 434 00:34:45,92 --> 00:34:49,18 to Stephen Colbert said reality has 435 00:34:49,19 --> 00:34:56,57 a well known liberal bias. And 436 00:34:57,60 --> 00:35:04,07 and this is this is funny but what I'm arguing is that it's also true 437 00:35:05,20 --> 00:35:08,59 and it's true by the nature of things it's what you would expect. 438 00:35:12,27 --> 00:35:16,74 And we conflate polls after polls that show that it's true today but I'll just give 439 00:35:16,75 --> 00:35:21,84 you three sixty four percent of Republican voters in the Clinton election thought 440 00:35:21,85 --> 00:35:26,89 it was not clear whether President Obama had been born in the United States sixty 441 00:35:26,90 --> 00:35:33,61 four percent. Fifty five percent of authoritarians versus nineteen percent of Naam 442 00:35:33,62 --> 00:35:37,42 authoritarians believe that Saddam Hussein had been directly involved in nine 443 00:35:37,43 --> 00:35:43,96 eleven attacks and only eighteen percent of Republicans and Tea Party members 444 00:35:43,97 --> 00:35:50,16 accepted the scientific consensus that global warming is caused by Q So there you 445 00:35:50,17 --> 00:35:55,77 go this is not mean that liberals are always right all right that doesn't follow 446 00:35:56,66 --> 00:36:01,25 liberals can be wrong too because everybody's emotional in their reasoning and 447 00:36:01,51 --> 00:36:04,93 liberalism and service have different emotions one of the key areas for liberal 448 00:36:04,94 --> 00:36:09,30 conservative difference that we did not talk about yet is moral difference and they 449 00:36:09,31 --> 00:36:09,59 just have 450 00:36:09,60 --> 00:36:13,08 a different sense of morality and what that means is they respond emotionally 451 00:36:13,33 --> 00:36:17,69 differently to situations so the point is that if your emotions get you going down 452 00:36:17,70 --> 00:36:22,63 a path you can be very biased and liberal learning them from that I just want to I 453 00:36:22,64 --> 00:36:26,34 just want to show that this research actually help us predict when liberals will 454 00:36:26,35 --> 00:36:32,14 devise the wrong this is one way of breaking down liberal conservative emotions and 455 00:36:32,15 --> 00:36:36,30 moral and these are emotions and morals about how you think government should be 456 00:36:36,31 --> 00:36:41,21 structured so you know some people are more hierarchical like the authoritarians in 457 00:36:41,22 --> 00:36:44,06 other words they're but they're fine with some people really being in charge of 458 00:36:44,07 --> 00:36:47,81 things and some people being subordinate to them and some people are very 459 00:36:47,82 --> 00:36:52,65 egalitarian I think we should be all equal you know based on race gender sexual 460 00:36:52,66 --> 00:36:56,60 persuasion all around some people are very individualistic and that means they 461 00:36:56,61 --> 00:36:56,82 think 462 00:36:56,83 --> 00:37:00,57 a fair system is one in which you get ahead or you fall behind on your own merits 463 00:37:00,95 --> 00:37:04,77 and there's nobody there to help you that's the way it should be so people are very 464 00:37:04,78 --> 00:37:07,36 communitarian in the sense that they believe that it takes 465 00:37:07,37 --> 00:37:12,23 a village we need to protect everybody from unfairness that's in our society and 466 00:37:12,24 --> 00:37:13,17 that that that is 467 00:37:13,18 --> 00:37:19,65 a proper role for government. So not surprisingly Republicans live up here their 468 00:37:19,66 --> 00:37:24,18 hierarchical and individual Democrats live down here their communitarian in the 469 00:37:24,19 --> 00:37:30,43 gallows here this predicts when Democrats will be wrong vaccinations. 470 00:37:32,99 --> 00:37:36,94 If you're egalitarianism you're suspicious of large concentrations of power because 471 00:37:36,95 --> 00:37:39,63 it creates inequality in our society and a corporation is 472 00:37:39,64 --> 00:37:44,08 a large concentration of wealth so if you and if you're communitarian your 473 00:37:44,09 --> 00:37:48,42 suspicions of harm specially to the weak it's children so if you get 474 00:37:48,43 --> 00:37:49,50 a false narrative about 475 00:37:49,51 --> 00:37:53,52 a corporation harming children it's in your emotional sweet spot and you're likely 476 00:37:53,53 --> 00:37:55,17 to believe that we've got 477 00:37:55,19 --> 00:37:59,48 a false narrative that's been promulgated over less ten years about vaccines being 478 00:37:59,49 --> 00:38:03,28 dangerous to children I know this is affected us here recently 479 00:38:03,29 --> 00:38:09,61 a lot. And liberals are inclined to believe this kneejerk emotional way so liberal 480 00:38:09,62 --> 00:38:10,61 can clearly be wrong 481 00:38:11,21 --> 00:38:15,18 a lot of other issues live down there like nuclear power fracking anything that 482 00:38:15,19 --> 00:38:18,28 a corporation is allegedly done if it's a false charge about 483 00:38:18,29 --> 00:38:23,57 a corporation liberals are inclined to believe that what makes them more right in 484 00:38:23,58 --> 00:38:27,18 the long run in these cases is that they have to deal with the scientific community 485 00:38:27,19 --> 00:38:31,92 who are part of their psychological you know members of our in the sciences don't 486 00:38:32,10 --> 00:38:36,48 don't put up with this crap all right in their areas of expertise and eventually 487 00:38:36,49 --> 00:38:39,92 they shoot it down that causes liberal psychological pain to fight with them 488 00:38:40,54 --> 00:38:44,37 because liberals are people who love universally loved scientists and you think in 489 00:38:44,38 --> 00:38:46,55 the same way express yourself with a lot of nuance 490 00:38:46,56 --> 00:38:52,55 a lot of uncertainty if it OK So that's that's the saving grace but it isn't that 491 00:38:52,56 --> 00:38:57,67 liberals can't be wrong. So that let me conclude 492 00:38:58,45 --> 00:39:04,39 a couple punches science describes reality human beings are really good at screwing 493 00:39:04,40 --> 00:39:10,95 this up we know that but I'm suggesting that you know some human 494 00:39:10,96 --> 00:39:11,96 beings maybe 495 00:39:11,97 --> 00:39:18,04 a little bit more than others face the sun the evidence before us don't. 496 00:39:19,28 --> 00:39:23,43 We still need to communicate about science need to communicate facts we need to get 497 00:39:23,44 --> 00:39:29,80 across what's true but we need to know what the source of resistance is what we're 498 00:39:29,81 --> 00:39:35,90 dealing with and we need to study what we're dealing with and there's no stopping 499 00:39:36,30 --> 00:39:41,37 this research on ideological differences and how they affect how we use and how we 500 00:39:41,38 --> 00:39:47,21 process it the nation in fact is proceeding apace Here's the political physio 501 00:39:47,67 --> 00:39:52,04 physiology laboratory door and University of Nebraska Lincoln now they're putting 502 00:39:52,05 --> 00:39:56,53 liberals and conservatives in I tracker devices OK where they watch where your eyes 503 00:39:56,54 --> 00:40:00,82 go when you go to collage of images liberalizing that sort of eyes do different 504 00:40:00,83 --> 00:40:06,47 things automatically they they go to different places conservatives look at the 505 00:40:06,48 --> 00:40:11,50 things that are scary and the things that are disgusting and like somebody eating 506 00:40:11,51 --> 00:40:15,40 worms right and the liberals are all looking at the happy bunny rabbit. 507 00:40:19,33 --> 00:40:25,22 These are uncontrolled differences. And that's is something we're going to have you 508 00:40:25,23 --> 00:40:28,10 know as more and more research comes in the something we're just going to have just 509 00:40:28,11 --> 00:40:34,39 the reality is. So in conclusion I want to leave you with some words of wisdom 510 00:40:34,99 --> 00:40:35,19 from 511 00:40:35,20 --> 00:40:41,99 a profound philosopher Yoda Yoda said you must 512 00:40:42,22 --> 00:40:46,95 learn what you have learned. When it comes to why the people deny science why 513 00:40:46,96 --> 00:40:52,53 people not facts why we can't persuade people who differ from us that is exactly 514 00:40:52,54 --> 00:40:56,47 the situation or THANK YOU 515 00:40:57,46 --> 00:41:04,75 THANK 516 00:41:05,39 --> 00:41:11,32 YOU. My intelligent friends voted for George Bush but. 517 00:41:12,68 --> 00:41:16,34 I was wondering if there was anything that influenced the conservatives to become 518 00:41:16,35 --> 00:41:18,27 temporarily liberal it's 519 00:41:18,28 --> 00:41:24,89 a great question. So surprisingly there is less research on the. Or it's 520 00:41:25,16 --> 00:41:30,71 hard to show I mean one of the studies on these temporary ships that it's far 521 00:41:30,72 --> 00:41:33,58 easier to make a liberal and conservative than make 522 00:41:33,59 --> 00:41:40,02 a conservative but I suspect that you know one of the traits of liberalism is 523 00:41:40,03 --> 00:41:45,64 seeing different sides of an issue and saying it's complicated and so if you find 524 00:41:45,65 --> 00:41:49,07 a way to do that kind of intervention then it's probably going to have that. 525 00:41:53,91 --> 00:42:00,66 Your research accounts for geographic differences in. Conservatives 526 00:42:00,80 --> 00:42:01,59 this state has 527 00:42:01,60 --> 00:42:08,39 a very market divided between East and West Yeah so that the red 528 00:42:08,40 --> 00:42:12,28 state blue state phenomenon there's research and eyes on the book showing that this 529 00:42:12,36 --> 00:42:14,30 doesn't just reflect political differences that reflect 530 00:42:14,31 --> 00:42:21,09 a personality that. But this is I'm not making the argument that like literally 531 00:42:21,10 --> 00:42:24,64 different reasons the United States are growing different people I mean that might 532 00:42:24,65 --> 00:42:29,17 be true to some extent but we know that people are selecting into different kinds 533 00:42:29,18 --> 00:42:32,73 of regions in which to live right and you know we know that liberals are going to 534 00:42:32,74 --> 00:42:36,55 Cambridge Massachusetts you know that's like where they want to be that was the 535 00:42:36,56 --> 00:42:38,92 university there all right so I'm 536 00:42:38,93 --> 00:42:43,50 a liberal grew up in the south of New Orleans Louisiana and I always just knew that 537 00:42:43,51 --> 00:42:46,33 I wanted to end up in the north. It's 538 00:42:46,34 --> 00:42:51,61 a natural thing so I think that people people are following their personality to 539 00:42:51,62 --> 00:42:56,46 places other people like them and that is leading America to be incredibly 540 00:42:56,47 --> 00:42:59,72 polarized it's one of the many things that's making America more. 541 00:43:04,46 --> 00:43:10,49 Possible things that might make conservatives more liberal could one of them be we 542 00:43:10,49 --> 00:43:16,17 . This is this is I mean are tapping in on the. 543 00:43:17,81 --> 00:43:23,65 Can we can we ethically do that Sunny I don't. I don't know I haven't seen that 544 00:43:23,66 --> 00:43:30,65 study. I think it be interesting. I can tell yeah. 545 00:43:35,26 --> 00:43:40,47 Sorry Hi there so I have two two questions one your driver 546 00:43:40,48 --> 00:43:44,82 a lot of the none of her men were from Georgia or in personalities how much of his 547 00:43:44,83 --> 00:43:48,79 it's tied into child rearing and you know in some ways the fights over 548 00:43:48,80 --> 00:43:55,10 a forgery and less authoritarian child are and then the other question that. I mean 549 00:43:55,26 --> 00:43:58,73 when I'm thinking of the political organizer I'm always art you can organize them 550 00:43:58,74 --> 00:44:03,39 or how can you pull them over and so the work that I do are from points I've seen 551 00:44:03,40 --> 00:44:07,03 people amazing example in a book of mine size of who is 552 00:44:07,04 --> 00:44:12,64 a vice president of the national news angelical getting converted on climate change 553 00:44:12,84 --> 00:44:14,97 by a prominent evangelical It was also 554 00:44:14,98 --> 00:44:19,93 a kind of really and then coming back and bringing people like Rick Warren taking 555 00:44:19,94 --> 00:44:24,26 the arc of regard climate scientists and converting some of them so they're using 556 00:44:24,27 --> 00:44:28,45 their same framework which gives him stability and trust the things and then the 557 00:44:28,51 --> 00:44:32,20 what's in your over saying oh actually this is God's creation we're talking about 558 00:44:32,67 --> 00:44:39,00 different interests. You bet so the first question is about authoritarianism 559 00:44:39,81 --> 00:44:45,81 and Yes Well in our political views are definitely rooted in our views of the 560 00:44:45,82 --> 00:44:49,70 family and this is something that George laid off as I'm saying and he's one of the 561 00:44:49,71 --> 00:44:55,25 pioneers in this area and it turns out that the modern measure of authoritarianism 562 00:44:55,26 --> 00:44:58,85 scientists of refined this because there were scientific problems with the way it 563 00:44:58,86 --> 00:45:02,86 was originally measured back when Dorner wrote disorder in personality now it's 564 00:45:02,87 --> 00:45:07,61 about childrearing they just ask things like what kind of child would you like to 565 00:45:07,62 --> 00:45:10,99 raise in obedient one or creative one right and that turns out to be 566 00:45:10,100 --> 00:45:14,27 a gigantic political difference and also correlates with all these traits like 567 00:45:14,28 --> 00:45:18,47 faith in rigidity and seeing the world in black and white so that's how we measure 568 00:45:18,48 --> 00:45:23,72 it and then your real question is what should we do I mean should we convert them 569 00:45:23,73 --> 00:45:29,71 or should we beat them politically. I know it's not an end or but and you're right 570 00:45:29,75 --> 00:45:34,74 that if you understand conservatives morality and if you understand their styles of 571 00:45:34,75 --> 00:45:38,100 information processing So for example I mean they're going to like more definitive 572 00:45:39,01 --> 00:45:43,60 statements and not this wishy washy wimp wimpy liberal nuance you know that just 573 00:45:43,80 --> 00:45:48,96 kind of makes them gag. So if you know that you can be more sports wasted sitting 574 00:45:48,97 --> 00:45:53,95 service but the but given the current political situation in which everybody is 575 00:45:53,96 --> 00:45:58,63 incredibly polarized and there polarized by information sources so that I don't 576 00:45:58,64 --> 00:46:02,42 think any you know liberal communication that's really savvy that appeals to 577 00:46:02,43 --> 00:46:05,79 conservative values can offset Fox News OK it's 578 00:46:05,80 --> 00:46:10,03 a much bigger megaphone it's hard to imagine gree there been forays you know 579 00:46:10,16 --> 00:46:13,61 talking to conservative values to get them to care about climate change but 580 00:46:13,62 --> 00:46:18,45 honestly I really think that this research is probably better aimed at moving the 581 00:46:18,46 --> 00:46:22,16 middle than moving conservatives because this research says that conservatives are 582 00:46:22,17 --> 00:46:28,94 hard and. So strategically I think that's wiser and. When you talk about the middle 583 00:46:29,09 --> 00:46:32,65 you're looking at people who are probably many of them psychologically somewhat 584 00:46:32,66 --> 00:46:36,66 blended in that they have both of these traits so that if you're aware that not 585 00:46:36,67 --> 00:46:40,37 everybody is a liberal who can make up their mind you know or are talking 586 00:46:40,38 --> 00:46:43,99 a lot of nuance and then you can adjust your styles in such 587 00:46:44,00 --> 00:46:48,73 a way that you appeal to the center as well as and then you just might that might 588 00:46:48,74 --> 00:46:55,67 be your winning strategy so I think this research is best and that it seems 589 00:46:55,68 --> 00:46:56,22 that there's 590 00:46:56,23 --> 00:47:03,23 a strong appeal to narrative mythology. Especially in regards to the conservative 591 00:47:03,45 --> 00:47:08,92 point. And the reason I bring that up is in regards to quote warming because it 592 00:47:08,93 --> 00:47:15,10 seems that the evidence and scientific the scientific evidence is neglected because 593 00:47:15,20 --> 00:47:15,47 there is 594 00:47:15,48 --> 00:47:20,69 a narrative with this mythology that is repeated over and over and over again and 595 00:47:20,70 --> 00:47:26,91 they tie it to Paul Ehrlich they tie it to limits to growth and that mythology 596 00:47:26,92 --> 00:47:32,54 seems to be very strong in terms of dealing with the scientific evidence out there 597 00:47:32,87 --> 00:47:38,26 is that is that part of the research or yeah that's we're on this. Figure for that 598 00:47:38,27 --> 00:47:43,81 question so I think everybody has a narrative I mean the Left has a narrative of 599 00:47:43,82 --> 00:47:48,83 a big corporation doing some kind of environmental or human health wrong that's 600 00:47:48,84 --> 00:47:49,93 a narrative and it's 601 00:47:49,94 --> 00:47:53,72 a narrative that appeals to left values so when you're talking about global warming 602 00:47:53,73 --> 00:47:53,80 as 603 00:47:53,81 --> 00:47:57,95 a narrative that appeals to the right values and particularly individuals and that 604 00:47:57,96 --> 00:48:04,87 narrative is basically socialist pinkos paper if I can try to 605 00:48:04,88 --> 00:48:09,99 put my the are trying to take control of our government our lives and we're strict 606 00:48:10,04 --> 00:48:15,64 our freedom and our choices and this phony science of global warming is something 607 00:48:15,65 --> 00:48:21,87 they cooked up so they could seize control of the economy and crush our freedom and 608 00:48:21,87 --> 00:48:22,80 so as an individual it's 609 00:48:22,82 --> 00:48:27,72 a narrative and they see the science through that lens and that leads them to 610 00:48:27,73 --> 00:48:33,03 distrust scientists and especially the environmental regulators who are going to be 611 00:48:33,04 --> 00:48:39,24 using the science to they say interfere in the economy there is 612 00:48:39,25 --> 00:48:44,33 a very strong. Given you know oh it's well these are these are deep seeded 613 00:48:44,34 --> 00:48:51,08 emotional beliefs and people are straining all the evidence about the issue through 614 00:48:51,09 --> 00:48:55,33 them so every time they see anything about global warming it's this narrative is 615 00:48:55,37 --> 00:49:00,76 basically embedded then they're going to tag all the information with the emotions 616 00:49:01,14 --> 00:49:06,09 that are already associated with the issue for them. OK And so it's getting 617 00:49:06,10 --> 00:49:10,63 stronger and stronger basically and they you know global warming is now viewed as 618 00:49:11,29 --> 00:49:16,94 phony science that liberals made up to take your gun away I mean seriously that's 619 00:49:16,95 --> 00:49:19,93 that's kind of the way of thinking about it and that's why it's so emotional. 620 00:49:27,60 --> 00:49:34,32 My question is like you know I'm always in two. Battling 621 00:49:35,27 --> 00:49:41,50 crazy phony science Well liberal or conservative like pseudo science like global 622 00:49:41,51 --> 00:49:47,66 warming. And VAX in the specially in creationism and stuff but. 623 00:49:48,71 --> 00:49:54,96 It's like. We can actually do them that leg 624 00:49:55,84 --> 00:49:59,56 like sheep you know. Like because I know there's 625 00:49:59,57 --> 00:50:06,20 a lot of conservatives and stuff trying to get laws passed of the. Various 626 00:50:06,26 --> 00:50:13,05 scientific controversies Corden quote in classrooms and that's that's not good 627 00:50:13,06 --> 00:50:18,32 but you know do you think do you think that if science was actually taught better 628 00:50:18,33 --> 00:50:24,79 to children that this stuff wouldn't happen as much OK so I don't think education 629 00:50:24,80 --> 00:50:28,42 is education is important and valuable I don't think it's because all this we saw 630 00:50:28,43 --> 00:50:34,40 the smarted that So you know clearly and the reason it doesn't fix it is because 631 00:50:34,41 --> 00:50:40,19 you know emotion critical thinking basically if you have 632 00:50:40,20 --> 00:50:44,92 a strong belief system then you can see flaws in the reasoning of other people but 633 00:50:44,93 --> 00:50:48,70 you can't say you're wrong and that's what all the research shows I talk about just 634 00:50:48,71 --> 00:50:53,54 biased reasoning before I get into liberal conservative the. So given that that's 635 00:50:53,55 --> 00:50:58,12 the case if we wanted to make people reason better than we would be teaching them 636 00:50:58,23 --> 00:51:03,30 like Jed I feel they would be teaching them how to like withdraw from yourself and 637 00:51:03,31 --> 00:51:07,63 have no stake in things and it would be kind of them and we don't really do that we 638 00:51:07,67 --> 00:51:11,34 just we just sort of think that if we teach them the rules of logic it'll work but 639 00:51:11,35 --> 00:51:16,03 no they just apply the rules of logic collectively. In order to support their 640 00:51:16,04 --> 00:51:20,31 belief in the pact that you face these oppositional with their belief that that's 641 00:51:20,32 --> 00:51:26,09 the human animal it doesn't mean that mine don't change because minds do change and 642 00:51:26,10 --> 00:51:32,34 we see it all around the but people change for emotional reasons. So what this 643 00:51:32,35 --> 00:51:36,84 means is that if you want to change them and it will be hard you don't just hit 644 00:51:36,85 --> 00:51:41,75 them with evidence because they're all configured to refute it and not agree with 645 00:51:41,76 --> 00:51:48,73 it but if you change their feelings then they'll process things differently so 646 00:51:49,03 --> 00:51:53,95 that you know so that the whole scientific thought persuasion turns out to be not 647 00:51:53,96 --> 00:51:56,76 a very good persuasion in any area where people have 648 00:51:56,77 --> 00:52:02,75 a stake that's basically with the research I was thinking about how the 649 00:52:02,76 --> 00:52:07,18 conservative personality type and the liberal personality type are both very good 650 00:52:07,61 --> 00:52:11,61 methods in different environments for survival if you look at the stone ages yes 651 00:52:11,66 --> 00:52:17,72 you probably very well off to mistrust your environment. To avoid attacks and likes 652 00:52:17,73 --> 00:52:22,28 to close the water sources and I was just wondering if there's any research on like 653 00:52:22,54 --> 00:52:27,84 if there's forces to make humanity become more conservative or more liberal I would 654 00:52:27,91 --> 00:52:32,44 think you'd become more liberal because we don't have to worry about being and I 655 00:52:32,45 --> 00:52:37,06 guess that's how it's for anyone except ourselves but I was wondering if there's if 656 00:52:37,16 --> 00:52:39,22 there's in the whether there's 657 00:52:39,23 --> 00:52:45,23 a long term trend towards you know every people are obviously thinking along these 658 00:52:45,24 --> 00:52:50,54 lines. They're thinking that this you know basically it's called approach avoidance 659 00:52:50,54 --> 00:52:56,68 . You know where the liberals exploring that's the approach and the conservatives 660 00:52:56,69 --> 00:53:00,34 the funding and the the invoice and strategy is one study where they find there was 661 00:53:00,35 --> 00:53:01,85 a conservatives doing this when they're playing 662 00:53:01,86 --> 00:53:07,34 a video game that's how they're playing the game so yeah and you can see how both 663 00:53:07,35 --> 00:53:11,61 are strategies that would make sense in the survival sense but the question then is 664 00:53:11,62 --> 00:53:17,90 wired we have both and why are they somehow distributed on equally in people in 665 00:53:17,91 --> 00:53:22,68 correlation with personalities and what is evolution of the say about that and the 666 00:53:22,69 --> 00:53:28,12 answer is I don't know. And the answer is the scientists don't have 667 00:53:28,13 --> 00:53:31,31 a clear answer based on what I'm seeing because 668 00:53:31,32 --> 00:53:36,87 a lot of things that we are today are not necessarily the result of natural 669 00:53:36,88 --> 00:53:39,20 selection because natural selection does 670 00:53:39,21 --> 00:53:43,42 a specific thing and some things happen just because of the draw and it could be 671 00:53:43,43 --> 00:53:49,10 that we just there's just noise there's just variability in who we are and that 672 00:53:49,11 --> 00:53:52,91 ends up getting distributed and it has political implications but evolution in the 673 00:53:52,91 --> 00:53:59,88 . Thinking that the forces allow us to right now are probably different than 674 00:53:59,89 --> 00:54:05,08 what a lot of we also reflects a bill right I mean and so to some extent based on 675 00:54:05,09 --> 00:54:08,55 a situation you can activate a more conservative style or activate 676 00:54:08,56 --> 00:54:10,95 a more liberal style mean and it makes 677 00:54:10,96 --> 00:54:16,89 a lot of sense that we would be adaptable. So my brother was like 678 00:54:16,90 --> 00:54:21,93 a Sarah pail and Rush Limbaugh type conservative who has now divorced me and 679 00:54:21,94 --> 00:54:28,70 unfriended me and blocked me it's obvious you he has and he won't take my calls and 680 00:54:28,71 --> 00:54:33,80 that was you know as of last year and. It's over politics and it culminated last 681 00:54:33,81 --> 00:54:37,73 year do you have any tips for how I can reach out to you and. 682 00:54:43,12 --> 00:54:50,02 I'm really sorry to hear that. I mean the only way that I don't think this 683 00:54:50,03 --> 00:54:51,90 is rare I think. It happened 684 00:54:51,91 --> 00:54:58,89 a couple of other. I think that the only way to open somebody up is 685 00:54:58,90 --> 00:55:05,48 different from you politically is you know not to try to argue issues with them but 686 00:55:05,53 --> 00:55:10,08 to emphasize all the things that you still share. And for you that's more than just 687 00:55:10,12 --> 00:55:17,00 somebody different politically from you so it's all about common ground. And 688 00:55:17,01 --> 00:55:18,72 shared values and I would think you would have 689 00:55:18,73 --> 00:55:24,99 a lot of those still trying to come down to whether it's actually nature or nurture 690 00:55:25,53 --> 00:55:27,23 and you know there's 691 00:55:27,24 --> 00:55:32,29 a diagram of what areas are triggered more predominately in the brain and you 692 00:55:32,30 --> 00:55:38,26 mentioned some research about how how young these correlations exist 693 00:55:39,22 --> 00:55:41,79 down to play I mean is there 694 00:55:42,36 --> 00:55:47,33 a which the correlations drop away or when they start to become more pronounced 695 00:55:47,82 --> 00:55:52,35 leading to the answer to the question Is someone actually born that way or is it 696 00:55:52,69 --> 00:55:56,33 nurture but nurture at a very young age. That's 697 00:55:56,35 --> 00:56:01,39 a great question we don't have full certainty nature and nurture is not 698 00:56:01,39 --> 00:56:08,14 a dichotomy it's always both. So you know if I. Have the genes of the 699 00:56:08,16 --> 00:56:11,81 seven one and I go and I'm don't need 700 00:56:11,82 --> 00:56:13,85 a good diet when I'm growing up then I'm not going to be 701 00:56:13,86 --> 00:56:18,09 a basketball. OK So that's that's the nature nurture right there is 702 00:56:18,10 --> 00:56:22,40 a very simple equation. The genetic studies which are actually you know there's 703 00:56:22,41 --> 00:56:26,72 a new paper out just this week that problematize and it's finding it's finding some 704 00:56:26,73 --> 00:56:30,49 of the same results but it's casting you know it's saying that either the Quinn 705 00:56:30,53 --> 00:56:34,96 study methodology is too strong or too weak our methodology yields also genetic 706 00:56:34,97 --> 00:56:40,67 differences but it's not as many. In the twin study methodology which is basically 707 00:56:41,00 --> 00:56:44,93 the way that they've always done liberal conservative differences actually it's 708 00:56:44,94 --> 00:56:49,47 percents on where your differences are coming from and it puts about forty percent 709 00:56:49,48 --> 00:56:52,76 on genes that ten percent of the shared family environment that you have when 710 00:56:52,77 --> 00:56:56,19 you're growing up about that the percent of everything that happens like that you 711 00:56:56,20 --> 00:57:02,04 leave the nest that's what they do but you know do you accept twin studies and I 712 00:57:02,05 --> 00:57:06,18 talk about them in the book and so you know geneticists are going to be doing 713 00:57:06,19 --> 00:57:12,14 a lot of cool stuff to explain how genes are making us and it's going to it's 714 00:57:12,15 --> 00:57:18,23 pretty clear that genes are only playing an important role but exactly how big. And 715 00:57:18,24 --> 00:57:21,85 exactly how that works with experience I mean that is a that is 716 00:57:21,86 --> 00:57:25,95 a huge complex area of research where I think in ten twenty years we'll have some 717 00:57:25,96 --> 00:57:28,52 really good answers OK so that's 718 00:57:28,53 --> 00:57:32,48 a liberal answer to your question all right so thank you very much.